


Tidebringer

by captainofthefallen



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Abbey of the Fallen Moon, Gen, Low Tide, Ondra's Witness, does contain people drowning but not really graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 06:39:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13828617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainofthefallen/pseuds/captainofthefallen
Summary: For Pillars Prompts Weekly 27: Tough CallsBeneath the Abbey of the Fallen Moon, Mara faces a choice.I absolutely spoiled the ending in the tags.Written because apparently I like suffering.





	Tidebringer

Her skin is crawling. Everything about this place is the embodiment of the wrongness she’s felt from the whole abbey. That these people knowingly, _willingly_ allow themselves to be sealed down there, knowing they’re going to their deaths but not before everything they are is destroyed… she can’t comprehend it. 

They’re already worse than dead. And the ones who’ve proclaimed their own death sentences by attacking her… they’re the lucky ones. 

She wonders why they don’t fight each other. Perhaps they’re not so far gone that they don’t recognize their fellows, but…

She’s been given an alternative. Release them, let them escape, live new lives, create new memories. It’s tempting, of course. Defy the will of Ondra, and all that. She’s condemned these people to the worst fate Mara can imagine: forgetting everything, and then being washed away and forgotten themselves.   
Maneha wants to release them to the Wheel, and she admits that has an appeal to it. End their suffering. Let their souls be free to find new lives and form new memories without being haunted by… this. 

She stands before the switch, staring at an impossible choice, wondering which is the lesser of two evils. 

She remembers why she’s here. She’s here to stop the Eyeless. To do that, Kaoto needs to think she’s the Tidebringer. 

If she lets them go, that’s it. They’ll know, they’ll attack. She’ll have to fight the whole abbey to get to the reliquary, and by then it may be too late. 

She’ll bear this burden as long as she remembers it, and she won’t let herself forget. Ondra is responsible for their deaths, for how they’re going to die. But she’s still pulling the trigger. 

She turns the dial toward the rising wave. 

The flood begins slowly, as a trickle, but she feels it. She sees the soul connections of the Low Tide, she feels the emptiness of their souls, nearly devoid of memory, and she feels their fear as the water starts to rise more quickly. They know what this means. Even having forgotten everything, they know this. 

The fear intensifies until she’s staggering under its weight, until she can’t bear it and leans against the wall for support she doesn’t deserve. 

She hears the screams, but more than that, she feels them. Every single one. Utter, manic terror, engulfing the soul of each member of the Low Tide. 

And she feels it, too, as every life is snuffed out. Every soul returned to the Wheel, empty, even (if Ondra is to be believed) at peace. 

But she doesn’t feel peace. Just the last moment of terror as the water rises over their heads, when they’re nothing and no one and they’ve condemned themselves to death but they don’t remember why, when all they know is fear of a death they’ve forgotten is coming. When they want to _live_ , but it’s too late. 

She says against the wall, the weight of what she’s just done threatening to crush her, eyes still squeezed shut because dying with those she’s condemned is the least she deserves. 

Arms wrap around her waist, holding her up, and she leans into the embrace, little though she deserves it. 

Not even knowing she’s doing this to stop the Eyeless is enough. She can’t escape this. 

When Kaoto refuses the ritual, when she has to fight him despite agreeing with his every word, when she learns the final truth, her despair is only eclipsed by her fury. Ondra will pay for this. For all of it. 

But that decision, pulling the switch, ending the lives that were empty but lives all the same, was hers alone. And she will never stop regretting it, not until she dies or is so far gone that she’s no longer even sure who she is.

Maybe not even then.


End file.
